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It's exceedingly easy to let your Steam library spiral out of control when faced with daily deals and seasonal sales, but at least SteamLeft provides a fun estimate of just how many hours you could spend plowing through it all. SteamLeft usesHow Long to Beat's crowdsourced averages to estimate a playtime for any Steam library, offering a fairly reasonable argument that maybe we should slow down and spend some of this money on our savings accounts instead.

As haunting neat as it is to get a time-based conversion of our libraries, SteamLeft's suggestions for alternative time sinks are probably our favorite part of the experience. For example, we could run 108 marathons instead of spending 493 hours playing through our Steam library. We could also listen to Mulan's "Be A Man" 7,405 times, which we'll just go ahead and get started on now.

What's the hour count for your libraries? What ridiculous feats could you conquer if only you were driven mad with devotion to similarly-time consuming tasks? Share your stats with us ... and then join us when we inevitably buy more games we don't have time for during the next seasonal Steam sale.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>backloglinuxmacpcsteamSun, 18 Jan 2015 19:30:00 ESThttp://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/03/sony-looking-to-make-psp-psn-more-like-virtual-console/http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/03/sony-looking-to-make-psp-psn-more-like-virtual-console/http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/03/sony-looking-to-make-psp-psn-more-like-virtual-console/#comments
In hopes of bolstering its PSP PSN download scene, Sony plans to expand its digital catalog to include non-PlayStation console titles. "In general, there's a lot of discussion about [publishers'] back catalogs that will finally find its way to PlayStation Network in the back half of this year," said SCEA's John Koller to MTV Multiplayer. That would include both the promise of more PSOne titles (as North America seriously needs to catch up to Japan in that regard) and pre-PSOne retro titles.

Despite becoming more Virtual Console-ish, this expansion of the PSP side of PSN will also offer more portable versions of PS3 downloadable titles, such as PixelJunk Monsters and the already released Super Stardust Portable. Koller says that Sony's studios are preparing more internally developed download-only titles. This strong focus on digital distribution makes us wonder if the whole "dropping UMD" rumors are true.

Playing Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty again, after all these years, has had an interesting effect on my opinion of it. Which is to say, I actually like it now. I'm tempted to compare it to a maturing, fine wine, a substance I'm sure was heavily consumed during the game's development, but the truth is that Sons of Liberty remains every bit the unhinged and convoluted mess I remember it to be. A mess that, with patience and even the slightest idea of what you're getting yourself into, becomes considerably easier to navigate. Wait ... does that make me the wine?

The B[ack]log finally returns with a special, three-part look at Metal Gear Solid:

It seems I've become the architect of my own failure. Instead of demolishing the skyscraper of untouched games in my living room, I recently and rather foolishly added three more stories to it. Three very involving, convoluted and relentlessly ridiculous stories, mind you, but ones that I've already been through once. With the release of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots close enough for me to start using the word "impending," I thought it was time for a Metal Gear Solid replay.

A word of warning: While I've tried to steer clear of plot-related spoilers, we're talking about a game that's nearly ten years old. FYI, the Titanic sinks at the end.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>BacklogHideo-KojimaMetal-Gear-SolidMetal-Gear-Solid-4-Guns-of-the-PatriotsMGSMGS4PS2PS3SNAAAAAAAAAKEStealthFri, 16 May 2008 18:30:00 ESThttp://www.joystiq.com/2008/04/12/ds-daily-whats-in-your-backlog/http://www.joystiq.com/2008/04/12/ds-daily-whats-in-your-backlog/http://www.joystiq.com/2008/04/12/ds-daily-whats-in-your-backlog/#comments
If you're anything like us, you've probably bought tons of games that you haven't even touched (or maybe just barely scratched the surface). So, how big is your DS backlog? What games have you bought, but not really delved into? Do you expect to actually play them any time soon? And, speaking of which, why haven't you played said games yet? Lack of time, or perhaps buyer's remorse?

[The B[ack]log now returns from hiatus which, given the subject matter, is probably a bad thing.]

A few weeks ago, I experienced my first proper gaming injury... and it wasn't at all how I imagined it would be. My fantasies of physical folly usually involve a mangled foot on a Dance Dance Revolution machine or a Wii remote lodged in an eye socket, bodily damage incurred from activities that largely require, you know, activity. I considered it a dubious achievement to have unlocked pain in a part of my body simply by sitting on a couch and fervently pushing buttons. How fragile my body is!

Though the process of waking up is generally one I try to avoid -- it feels too much like being dragged through the dangling rubber strips at the top of an airport baggage claim -- I immediately knew that Monday morning was off to an even worse start than usual. The immobilizing lower back pain was the obvious clue, its origin being quite the mystery at first. Was I picking up refrigerators in my sleep? Did someone replace my mattress with a pile of rakes? Or did I really manage to hurt myself by playing Dirt non-stop for a weekend?

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>BacklogDirtPCPS3RallyXbox-360Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:58:00 ESThttp://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/01/the-b-ack-log-elite-beat-addict/http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/01/the-b-ack-log-elite-beat-addict/http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/01/the-b-ack-log-elite-beat-addict/#commentsFiled under: Nintendo DS, RhythmAlex Ward isn't going to appreciate me saying this, but I recently beatElite Beat Agents. In one sitting, I might add. If you've ever read one, you'd know that a typical video game manual generally frowns upon such protracted play sessions, urging you to take a break every hour and go stare at something that isn't comprised of polygons. That seemed like terrible advice at the time, and for two very good reasons.

The first, being the one most concerned with my personal health, was that severing the connection and stepping outside would result in a sudden depressurization and my intimate inspection of a churning jet engine. Perhaps this would have been the superior option had I packed Lost in Blue for the 5-hour flight from New York to Los Angeles, but I wisely went with Nintendo's music-and-rhythmer instead. The second reason then, was that I found myself far too enthralled to even consider giving up for a moment -- not even when I was losing.

Jacqueline Natla is quite obviously the villain in Tomb Raider: Anniversary. In the 1996 original, the only initial clues to her evil nature resided in a somewhat condescending tone of voice and a far too serious haircut. The opening moments of the Crystal Dynamics remake, however, show a more conniving woman with flowing blond hair, almost alien facial features and suspiciously long fingers. Still a bit of a condescending hag, though.

"My company has recently turned its focus on the study of ancient artifacts, and I am lead to believe that with the right incentive, you are just the woman to find them for me," she says, addressing one of gaming's most iconic characters, Lara Croft. "I'm afraid you've been mistaken," comes the decorous reply. "I only play for sport." Ah, but Natla's done her research. "Which is precisely why I've come to you Miss Croft. This is a game you've played before..."

Though trusting the words of a noticeably vile video game character is generally not advised, they're true in this case. Tomb Raider: Anniversary is indeed a game you've played before, at least if you had the good sense to play Tomb Raider at some point in your fulfilling life (replace "fulfilling" with "miserable" if you haven't). The reworked puzzles, contemporized controls and modern presentation may set Anniversary apart from the groundbreaking effort by Core Design, but beneath those layers lies the same game with the same ideals. Either Tomb Raider was nearly eleven years ahead of its time, or the games we play just haven't changed all that much.

Well, the title seemed sort of clever at the time. "The B[ack]log" represents one gamer's fight against that seemingly insurmountable and entirely self-inflicted obstacle, the ever-sprawling backlog of games that are either unfinished, unplayed or unloved. That's the "Backlog" part. After surgically inserting some brackets, it becomes "B[ack]log," a reference to both the blog format and the unique sound emitted whenever I view the stack of games I keep adding to every month. And every week, I hope to subtract at least one and ramble about it for a few paragraphs... if you don't mind. A review this is not.

It seems simultaneously appropriate and depressing then, that the first game to be ejected and examined (and then ejected again) is one primarily concerned with hoarding as much stuff as you possibly can -- We Love Katamari for the PlayStation 2.